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By Jeff Harding. [Updated October 1, 2009] I try to balance my day by reading well known optimist and pessimist economists. My two favorites are Brian Wesbury of First Trust in Chicago as my “Mr. Sunshine” and Dave Rosenberg as my “Joe Btfsplk*” (the name “Dr. Doom” was already taken by Nouriel Roubini). I know [...] By Jeff Harding. The “Center for American Progress” is the best example of an oxymoronish name that I can think of. This is a “progressive” (socialist) “think tank” (another misleading term) lead by John Podesta, a former Clinton Chief of Staff and Obama adviser. They are coming out with a report on Wednesday that will recommend that: [T]he [...] By Jeff Harding. The Daily Capitalist is now publishing articles on the popular Zero Hedge blog. I take articles that are published here first and republish them on Zero Hedge’s “contributors” page. Sometimes my articles make the front page. Zero Hedge states its mission: to widen the scope of financial, economic and political information available to the professional [...] By Jeff Harding. Every commentator is teasing the positives or negatives of recent data to justify his or her prognostications as to whether or not we are in a recovery. I think most forecasts are worthless because economists forecast the future by assuming what happened last week will happen next week, maybe a little better [...] By Jeff Harding. This chart is interesting in that it puts the U.S. in perspective with the economies of the rest of the world. This came to me from Bloomberg, via The Big Picture. Click to enlarge. By Jeff Harding. In case you missed it, Citigroup will owe Andrew Hall, top trader and head of its Phibro energy trading unit, an estimated $100 million paycheck in 2009. Actually I’m sure you didn’t miss it because this stunning sum has made Citi and Mr. Hall the poster children for Wall Street’s “excesses.” On [...] By Jeff Harding. You just can’t make this stuff up. Obama Open to Newspaper Bailout Bill The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses. “I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” [...] By Jeff Harding. Dr. Frank Shostak is Chief Economist for MF Global, the former trading arm of Man Financial, the world’s largest hedge fund. Man spun off MF Global as a stand-alone company. I believe he is the best (Austrian school) economist out there in applied economics because he makes his living prognosticating for a commercial [...] By Jeff Harding. This map has just been released by Moody’s Economy.com. It shows their prediction of when the housing market will return to pre-crash heights. Moody’s has been less than reliable in the past, at least insofar as their faulty credit ratings of derivatives (i.e., subprime securities). Some people have taken to call them “Muddy’s” [...] By Jeff Harding. The Great Cap and Trade Kerfuffle between the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a libertarian think tank, and the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank has been fun to watch. Really fun to watch. The Center for American Progress was founded by John Podesta, a former Clinton Chief of [...] By Jeff Harding. The esteemed Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of UK’s Telegraph makes the unstartling announcement that U.S. bank credit has been shrinking for the past three months at a rate (14%) that has not been witnessed since the 1930s. Professor Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research said US bank loans have fallen at an annual pace [...] By Jeff Harding. We are plunged deep into the biggest credit-business cycle in world history. Many cycles have been worldwide, but this one dwarfs all others, including the Great Depression. An ocean of money and credit flooded every corner of the globe. The culture of easy wealth worked its way into [...] By Jeff Harding.
Welcome to the New Deal v. 2.0. President Obama, as expected, said today that we are entering into a new regulatory phase of financial markets. Readers of The Daily Capitalist already knew this was coming back in August of 2008. I called it the Financial Risk Commission, but its [...] By Jeff Harding. Political Commentary I am reprinting this article by investment advisor Doug Casey. I mostly agree with his criticism. This is not an endorsement of Casey or his investment advice. I believe Casey has been predicting massive inflation. I am not a conservative and I believe Bush was a conservative in the worst (classical) sense of the [...] By Jeff Harding. Richard Fisher, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank gave a talk yesterday at my alma mater, U.C. Santa Barbara and I had a chance to meet him and ask a question after his speech. His talk was entitled, Post-Traumatic Slack Syndrome and the Economic Outlook (With Thanks to Finn Kydland, Dolly Parton [...] By Jeff Harding. This is a bit of an “I told you so” comment. My complaint has been that we shouldn’t let the people who were in charge of getting us into this mess be in charge of getting us out of it. If they don’t understand the cause they can’t really help with the cure. Here [...] By Jeff Harding. It has been my experience over my years of observing the financial markets and its prognosticators that economists seldom translate their correct views of the economy to investment success. I am speaking mostly of those economists who are not captive in-house economists, but those who toil in academia or sell research. I speak especially [...] |
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